Rizon Jet on to 'City of Light'

After completing development of executive terminals at Doha International Airport in Qatar and at London’s Biggin Hill Airport, Rizon Jet is laying plans for a further FBO development at Paris Le Bourget Airport. According to the Qatar-based company’s acting CEO, Harold Stoddard, the site for the new development could be agreed by early next year and the facility would open in 2014.

Rizon’s maintenance, repair and overhaul facility at Doha is in the final stages of getting European approval to work on aircraft in Bombardier’s Global Express and Challenger families, as well as Hawker Beechcraft jets. It will then seek the same approvals from authorities in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Bermuda. The Biggin Hill facility already holds European, Qatar, Bermuda and Cayman Islands approvals for the same aircraft types, as well as for the Hawker Beechcraft Premier I and Cessna Citation 560 series.

The next aircraft to join Rizon’s management fleet will an Airbus ACJ319 and a Bombardier Global 6000, which are due to arrive in 2013, when they will join a pair of Challenger 605s, a Hawker and a Global XRS. In the UK, Rizon is partnered with Oryx Jet, which operates a Hawker 900XP and a Premier I.

Stoddard told AIN that, over the next two years, Rizon wants to add a dozen or more aircraft. “The economic downturn has impacted everyone’s plans in terms of the amount of business we get,” he said. “I am not sure we will ever get back to previous levels, but we see some stabilization and I have seen an uptick in our own business.”

The main investor in Rizon Jet is Qatar-based private company GSSG Holdings. The total investment in the new Doha and London FBOs was $50 million.